61 Percent of Roman Catholics Now Support Abortion

The largest religious group in the world–the one that claims to be the one true Church–the Roman Catholic Church, has historically stood in staunch opposition to abortion. However, according to a British Social Attitudes poll that was released, 61 percent of Roman Catholics now believe that a woman should be able to decide the fate of her unborn child. This is up from 39% in 2012. The report states,

Religious groups are less likely than people with no religion to say that a woman should be allowed by law to have an abortion if she does not wish to have the child. Nearly 4 out 5 (78%) of people with no religion say abortions should be allowed in this situation. One might expect Catholics to be most likely to disagree with abortions in this situation given the Vatican’s continued opposition. While this may be true historically, Catholics (61%) are now more likely than ‘other’ Christian groups (57%) to think these abortions should be allowed, and are not far behind Anglicans (67%). The increase in approval of this type of abortion by those of religion in general appears to have been driven in part by a change in views among Christian groups, in particular Catholics, among whom there has been a 22 percentage point increase in the view that abortions should be allowed if the woman does not wish to have the child (from 39% in 2012 to 61% in 2016). However, we need to treat these within-Christianity trends with some caution as the sample sizes are small.

Of course, an apostate religion that holds an incorrect view of God, man, and the gospel should not be expected to hold to any moral standard, especially when the only objective standard of morality as revealed in Scripture is rejected by the group as the only infallible standard. Morality in the Roman Catholic Church then becomes mere subjective opinions of men who influence the institutions official positions, and repeatedly change and evolve over time. Any church, including the liberal Protestant and Evangelical churches, that allow these views in the pews to go undisciplined should be, at the very least, apostate.